Like Poison
by toinkeroo
Summary: "I feel like the worst kind of idiot, for not noticing sooner. For letting myself get tricked into believing that it was all actually real. I would stop time; if I try I think I could. I would keep you here, asleep in front of me, still in love with me."


**Notes: **First time writing for this fandom, so apologizing ahead for any and all mistakes. :) Feedback is most certainly welcome. Hope that it is somehow to your liking. :)

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I.

Three hours until dawn.

In the morning, he may wake up and find it strange to see his manservant sitting by the windowsill, staring at him with sad eyes, hands paused in the middle of writing. He will ask the boy if he had stayed there all night and whether he has any intention of attending to his duties soon because despite everything he has never really learned how to properly show his concern.

But if the servant hurries and finishes the letter…

In the morning, he will wake up groggy and disoriented, having woken up from much longer than a few hours of sleep. The soft light will fall on a sheaf of notes left on the windowside table, teetering on its folds with the slight breeze.

The poison may leave him confused, but not necessarily weakened, the physician said. He will be strong enough to stand on his own and walk to the table to pick up the note, to bend forward to pick up the ring that slips from the pages and clatters to the floor.

_Your highness_, it will uncharacteristically read, _I am very sorry._

II.

Gaius is, if anything, a scholar at heart. If he can forget, for a while, the look of hurt and disbelief in Merlin's eyes, he would concede that this case is one of great academic interest. No potion had ever been known to last for an entire month without sustenance or renewal from its source, but this one had lasted for more than a year, exhibiting the same potency despite the disappearance of its originator.

He gives the prince a draught of mint, honey, some purifying herbs-for 'cleansing the palate.' It is a simple enough mixture but the prince still coughs and vomits. It is a good thing, apparently. More of the poison leaving the system.

He almost cannot bring himself to suggest it.

"In a few days, when you are feeling, er, well, sire. I could give you. Something to. Forget."

Silence.

"Sire?"

The only answer is a fist tightening on a worn, crumpled piece of paper.

_If I were braver, I would stay. But I suppose in the end I really am a coward. I don't think I can wait to see how much you will actually remember._

III.

The king will not suffer his son any further poking and prodding and throws a rage at any suggestion on the same. In a different world, with a different set of histories, he might have grown to accept and appreciate magic. It was, after all, through a mist of twinkling lights and a burst of color that he first laid eyes on Ygraine, gaze locking on hers as she exclaimed in delight at the magical display. He used to say, the queen's smile was its own brand of magic, filling him with wonder and joy every time.

But that was a long time ago. Now he has a kingdom to lead and a son to prepare it for, and he has learned the hard way that magic is not only a distraction, it is a dangerous, evil thing and must be eliminated for the good of all.

And so there will be no experimentation performed on his son, even as the prince himself refuses to take any other droughts or mixtures. He cannot be blamed, after all. The last potion was a dangerous one and enough to keep one off them for a lifetime.

Within a few weeks, the prince goes back to his regular duties. He can only hide from his knights for so long. Everyone is welcoming, chattering incessantly, filling the air with questions and answers and gossip and musings welcome and unwelcome, making up for a void they refuse to name. For the name they choose to avoid.

_This past year has been a dream, you know? Like I had been given a chance to steal a piece of time. And a piece of you. Maybe, by leaving, I could pretend that I'm bringing along that piece of you with me, and you do not have to be saddled with the mistakes you didn't even know you were making._

_They say this is the darkest hour, you know? Before the dawn? But I think it's helping me see more clearly._

IV.

He wakes sometimes in the night or early morning, filled with memories of the past year. Everything passes through a filter, a mellowed, tinted hue on each image. Shapes are blurry at the edges. Voices sound tinny and far away.

A flash of color. Red scarf floating to the ground. Red lips, reddening cheeks, the sky bleeding with the sun setting.

Fingertips and knuckles stained with ink. Early morning in the stables. The wood too rough, his voice, too rough as he says, "It's just a splinter," and laughs. A shield, mid-polish, falls on the straw, forgotten.

_Honorable,_ they say. _Duty,_ they say. Merlin's head, falling heavy on his shoulder, damp from the rain. He has never felt happier in his life.

_It is unfair_, the letter reads, _and it is selfish, I know. But what do you expect me to do? I feel like a thief, like I've stolen this past year from you, but you-you have stolen all of me. And I wish I could take it back._

_I wish this was simply poison, a sickness, something I could clean out of my system._

V.

After a while, he has taken to writing it all down. It helps him distance himself from what happened. Pretend it is someone else's story. Perhaps, in a way, it is.

There was an argument in the courtyard, once. It involved shouting, and wrists being held so tightly they might have broke. The otherwise smooth wall is still chipped in all the spots where he had lost his temper.

On his birthday, he reaches the fifty-first chapter. He is amazed at how much he can remember. He goes back to Chapter 22 and trembles, as he reads, _And his hands, they were soft, as he held me. His hands. His hands. They shouldn't be so soft. He held me. His hands, they were soft, as he held me. He held me. With impossibly soft hands._

He thinks, wryly, _I can never be a poet._

He had rewritten the letter, word for word, from memory. The original is old and worn and hardly recognizable and kept hidden in the chest beside the wardrobe inside the room in the east wing that no one knows about.

The eighty-sixth chapter is the letter. As he reads it, he can almost hear Merlin as he says, _I feel like the worst kind of idiot, for not noticing sooner. For letting myself get tricked into believing that it was all actually real._

_I would stop time; if I try I think I could. I would keep you here, asleep in front of me, still in love with me._

VI.

There is a song being sung in the villages; he hears the children bleat its chorus sometimes, but he can ignore the lively refrain as he leads another patrol. It is during the height of winter, as everyone is trapped in the hall, that the minstrel is coerced to earn his keep, and the soft notes of the lyre float in the air, and everyone's eyes turn to their prince, who has ink stains on his knuckles and splinters on his fingers, who storms off from the hall as the children sing along: _And this borrowed heart I shall return, and you no more shall see me._

He sleeps early that night. He dreams of hands. Hands that reach into his chest, tearing his rib and flesh out of the way. Hands that reach out and wrap around his heart, squeezing out all the blood, wringing it dry until viscous, toxic, inky black fluid seeps out.

"Let me," he says, "I can do it." He reaches out and tears his heart apart but it is dry, brown and brittle and turns to dust in his hands.

_They let me watch,_ he says,_ A parting favor, I guess. I watched while they cleansed you. Of the poison. And of me._

VII.

There is a map in the prince's chamber. The left portion is in near-tatters, littered with cross marks and holes from the sharp end of a knife. As the year wears on, the center of the map gets populated, until only the rightmost edges are free from marks.

Border patrol, the prince says. Need to assess potential threats from the neighbors.

Uther is silent, and looks at his son as if seeing him for the first time. All this renewed passion for the patrols. He never questioned it, and he will not question it now. He may not agree or approve of all his son's actions, but he can at least understand. There are worse ways, he thinks, for the prince to try to cope. And after this round, he will finally rest and maybe, move on, start building the kingdom again.

_I must leave,_ the letter says, _Please. Don't look for me._

VIII.

She would never have confessed if he did not shove the records in her face in anger.

"Why?" is all he says. His hands hang limply at his side, knuckles covered in ink.

He has been spending far too much time with a pen than with a sword. Gwaine had been teasing him, and hid all his supply of parchment.

In the scribe's rooms, hidden under books of two years back, he finds a records of a transfer of gold in Morgana's name. Hidden in the chest beside the wardrobe inside the room in the east wing that no one knows about were carefully written and dated notes, snuck in the corner of the chest. Written in Morgana's hand.

He scans through older pages.

_Awaiting depletion._

_Defective._

_No immediate adverse effects._

And older pages,

_Deflected intended object._

And older pages still,

_Subject exposed._

_Purchase: 50 Gold Coins._

_When you wake,_ Merlin says, _you will have many questions. Me, too. But I don't want to ask. I'm too afraid of what the answers will be._

IX.

Fingertips and knuckles stained with ink. They should not be the first things he notices, but it is early morning at the courtyard and he looks thinner and paler than his memories, his own dream-image come to life.

The wood, too rough as he grasps tightly for balance. His voice, too rough, except he never remembers what he says.

"The poison." Merlin's voice breaks on the word, choking as if he were made to swallow it in Arthur's place this time. "Is it… gone?" he asks. "Are you well?"

His voice, too rough. _I will never be a poet,_ Arthur thinks. He laughs.

Merlin's hands, thin and pale and cold and unforgotten, they are soft; fingertips and knuckles stained with ink. Merlin's hands, by some miracle, still soft, as he pulls Arthur close, after too long, and holds him.

Arthur still has too many questions. But he has never felt happier in his life.

X.

_This is not love, they say. It is the poison: dirty and dangerous and lethal. I ask them, isn't that the same thing?_


End file.
